I’m back at my writing desk and Substack-ing after a brief hiatus - and it feels sublime.
Actually, it’s not strictly true to say, ‘…back at my writing desk’. I’m sitting instead at the bright, white kitchen counter and tapping furiously on my laptop as the washing machine swirls.
The beep, beep of the finished cycle signals that it's time for a break. To lift my head and peel myself from the stool. To glug water from a frosty pink glass then head outside to peg the damp clothes onto the line and make good use of the sun.
Hanging out swimwear and beach towels when their services won’t be required for quite a while is hard to stomach. The once tantalising scent of salty sea and coconut suntan lotion now cruelly replaced with a bland, powdery aroma of fabric conditioner.
I plan to stay here working in the kitchen for a while, until I can break the back of the unforgiving, seemingly perpetual mound of washing. You see, we’ve just spent ten blissful days on holiday in Skiathos. It’s a Greek island in the northwest Aegean Sea and part of the beautiful Sporades archipelago.
To me, it’s heaven on earth. It’s my happy place.
Before we flew out, I wasn’t in a good place though. Not a good place at all.
There were far too many plates to spin. I felt bone-tired, you know? There was a lot to contend with and solutions to be found, but little head space to poke around for them.
I felt frenzied and frazzled. There was no time for a haircut, or to get my nails done before squishing my toes into gold sandals and putting them on full display. I was ghostly pale. Grey circles had made a home under my eyes and refused to move or be concealed.
I felt like my outer layer was starting to peel away. I was a husk, an emptied shell. I was getting through each day and trying my best, but I was ground down.
I worked until 2am on the day we flew, snatching some sleep in between. Then again in the cab to the airport while our son, Evan, nattered excitedly about the flight and what he was going to eat on holiday and Mummy, can I buy Kick magazine at the airport? Yes, I said. Of course you can darling, with my eyes on my phone as I fired off a WhatsApp and tried to calm my fluttering heart.
Then we took off, the ground below getting teenier and teenier until the houses and fields were swallowed up by fluffy white clouds. I exhaled, deeply (a little raggedly, too, if I’m honest as I’m petrified of take off and landing) and, finally, I gave myself permission to let it all go. Up, up away and into the sky.
Something magical happened when we were away, in my happy place.
The anxiety that had gripped my chest tightly for weeks and made my tummy feel bruised to the touch slowly, but noticeably, evaporated.
I chomped greedily through two books - The Guilt Trip by Sandie Jones, perfect for a sun lounger, and the astonishing, devastating Animal by Lisa Taddeo. I made good progress on a third, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by one of my favourite authors, Bernardine Evaristo, and revelled in the sheer deliciousness of reading a really good book.
I laughed a lot. Giggles and belly laughs. With my husband, Alex. With Evan. With waiters and hotel staff, and other jolly holiday makers. I was silly and playful. I was patient and calm. ‘Sure!’ I said chuckling, when Evan asked for his second watermelon lolly of the day and ‘we’re on holiday, anything goes!’ as I peeled back the wrapper and handed it over after a sneaky bite.
By day 3, my rambunctious inner critic finally shut up. I stopped fretting about how I looked in a bikini. I forgot to suck in my stomach. Instead, I went for walks along the beach without covering up, grateful for the kind of weather when only swimwear will do. I felt the powdery sand between my toes, looked at the glittering sea and felt the warm sun baking my liberated body.
I dipped in the sea and splashed in the pool with Evan. I dunked my head under and glided below the surface, pretending I was a mermaid like I used to do when I was a kid. I practised handstands, badly, to make Evan laugh, joined in with his volleyball game and became a makeshift water taxi, transporting him from one side of the pool to the other as he tipped his head back and roared with laughter, saying, ‘Again, Mummy, again!’.
Crucially, I refused to give social media a glance. I stayed committed to my out of office and kept WhatsApps to a minimum, checking in with my beloved family and sending a few photos here and there. I listen to a great Crystal Palace FC podcast called HLTCO and the presenter, Dan, once explained to me that when he detoxes from socials, ‘it’s like your brain going from a crumpled ball to a crisp, flat sheet of paper’. My brain, too, became uncrumpled.
One evening at our hotel, a live band played rock and roll covers by the pool and bar and ended, triumphantly, with their own version of Monty Python’s ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ - which, believe me, sounds wonderful with a Greek accent. A lady with a beaming smile and a swirly skirt was trying to persuade someone to dance with her but was having no luck. Bolstered by a rum cocktail or two, I leaped up to take her outstretched hands. ‘I felt so foolish when no-one wanted to dance!” she whispered to me with kind eyes’. ‘You dance beautifully and you look very happy.’ I said, as we glided without a care in the world and I let my own dress swish around.
We took a boat trip around the islands with just one other family which lasted from morning to evening, avoiding the fun but busy ‘Mamma Mia’ trips. I gave it my all, despite a fear of open water and being prone to seasickness. I swam in the crystal-clear water and ventured into a dark cave with a snorkel to glimpse pastel coloured rocks and a kaleidoscope of fish. I ate freshly-made pasta, tomatoes sprinkled with salt and oregano and sipped a chilled beer or two. I dozed. I read my book. I watched Evan sleeping peacefully on the deck.
Sometimes I wore not a scrap of makeup and sometimes I went all out and added lashings of mascara and gave a coral lip a try. My nails stopped peeling and grew just a bit. My skin became plumper, less dry. I caught a mild tan (for me, that’s basically a smattering of freckles on my face and shoulders and turning a slightly bisque colour, like a Rich Tea biscuit). My hair went lighter at the front, like it used to do when I was little.
We're home now and back to work with the juggle of the summer holidays ahead, and it's… an adjustment. While pegging the washing out earlier, a holiday memory popped into my head and made me pause for a moment.
On one of those perfect, Skiathian days, Evan flopped onto a sun lounger, folded his hands behind his ears and closed his eyes. ‘Ahh, this is the life’ he said to me with a cheeky grin and a grown up voice he must have pinched from off the telly.
Yes. This is, indeed, the life and we only get one chance.
Happy Places can’t be exclusively reserved for that once-a-year, twice if you’re very lucky, summer holiday that is miles from home and even further from reality.
Admittedly, it’s hard to relive that happy place feeling when the anxiety starts to grip your chest and you can feel a sensation in your tummy. When the plates are spinning madly again and when the bone-tiredness is already starting to creep in. When you’re frenzied and frazzled and still rummaging around for that solution.
But, the laughing, beer-drinking, don’t-care-what-I-look-like Nicola is much, much more fun.
I must let her out more often.
Lovely piece
Such a good read Nicola. Everyone needs to have a happy place feeling and I’m glad you have found yours x